A host of accomplished conductors including Daniel Harding, Daniele Gatti, Bernard Haitink and Eliahu Inbal lead the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in these performances of Mahler's Symphonies Nos. 1-10. Recorded in Amsterdam over two seasons in 2010/11, the collection also includes 'Das Lied von der Erde'.

For the past 70 years, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (‘The SPO’) has played a leading role in enriching the cultural lives of Korea’s citizens. In 2005, under the inspirational leadership of Maestro Myung-Whun Chung, the orchestra was reborn and this set a new standard for orchestral music in Korea. The SPO performs a wide range of repertoire from Mozart to Messiaen and continues to shatter box office records. Indeed, in 2011 the SPO became Asia’s first orchestra to sign an exclusive worldwide ten-CD contract with the Deutsche Grammophon record label. Impressively, the first two albums that were released instantly went platinum.

Recorded live in 2014, one review stated that (the) Seoul Philharmonics Mahler Symphony No.5 fulfilled the high demands of audiences (for Mahler repertoires). Constant efforts of the Orchestra members and Myung-Whun Chungs persuasive interpretation were present. - (Yonhap News).

Collaborating for the first time the Fauré Quartett and soprano Simone Kermes perform pieces by Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss: Featuring Lieder from Strauss‘s early productive period and Mahler Lieder arranged by Dietrich Zöllner.

A milestone of music making, this 4 CD boxed set collects Maurice Ravel’s lush orchestral oeuvre in a collection of defining performances conducted by Pierre Boulez. A vivid testament to the ineffable incalculable role a conductor fills in any interpretation, ‘Pierre Boulez Conducts Ravel’ includes many of Ravel’s best known compositions along with the valuable addition of less recorded and long out of print gems such as Jessye Norman’s luminous Chansons Madécasses with members of Ensemble InterContemporaín and the Piano Concerto in D major for the Left Hand, played thrillingly here by Phillipe Entremont with an inspired lights out Cleveland Orchestra. Boulez’s prowess with the music of Ravel takes many forms, robust, muscular, capable of great tenderness, inquisitive, insouciant, and this collection of almost 5 hours of music allows one to immerse completely within the rich motherlode of genius that was Maurice Ravel. Includes informative 28-page booklet.

As the last completed symphony that Mahler wrote, the Ninth has often been heard by audiences as the composer’s swan song: a nostalgic, moving farewell from a composer conscious of his own mortality. This interpretation is of course easily justifiable, as etched into the musical fabric of the symphony are references to the tragedies that befell the composer in the years before his death. Furthermore, it is wholly plausible that for a man as melodramatic as Mahler, the idea of a symphony that centres around themes of loss and finality would surely have been an appealing prospect.

As the last completed symphony that Mahler wrote, the Ninth has often been heard by audiences as the composer’s swan song: a nostalgic, moving farewell from a composer conscious of his own mortality. This interpretation is of course easily justifiable, as etched into the musical fabric of the symphony are references to the tragedies that befell the composer in the years before his death. Furthermore, it is wholly plausible that for a man as melodramatic as Mahler, the idea of a symphony that centres around themes of loss and finality would surely have been an appealing prospect.

Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton burst upon the global opera and concert scene in recent years after having won many of the world’s most prestigious prizes for vocal excellence and accomplishments. Delos has scored a major coup in releasing her debut album. Jamie’s well-chosen program of late-Romantic repertoire begins with eight of Gustav Mahler’s finest lieder – including his wonderful Five Rückert Songs – before treating us to the rare delights of Antonin Dvořák’s song cycle Gypsy Songs. Her album concludes with even more seldom-heard selections from the many lovely Swedish-language songs of Finnish master Jean Sibelius. This sublime album – further graced by pianist Brian Zeger’s peerless collaboration – will take your breath away, and leave you hungry for more from Jamie Barton, considered by many of the world’s top vocal and operatic experts to be the rising mezzo of our time.

I love the whole symphony but from the second movement two favorite moments, two details, spring to mind. First, the recapitulation when the solo violin takes flight, like a buzzing bee around a flower, and then accidentally finds itself in a wonderful modulation to E major. The second is the ending. The flowers, that move and dance elegantly against the wind, suddenly expose their Tristan-like soul.

Mariss Jansons’s international reputation as a Mahler conductor is indisputable. During his tenure as chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Jansons did not record a full cycle of Mahler symphonies. With this new 2016 recording that project is now nearing completion. Mahler himself led the Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Dutch premiere of the Seventh in October 1909. How must the audience in the Main Hall have reacted to this whimsical work with its night-time atmosphere and eerie sounds? Although this vast symphony, featuring a number of unconventional instruments like the mandolin and guitar, did not catch on right away, it would slowly but surely win the hearts of music lovers everywhere.